Mayor Eric Adams praised Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie Wednesday — despite a new Post poll showing the power broker’s opposition to expanding city charter schools and rolling back the state’s lenient bail law goes against voters in his own Bronx district.
“The speaker, I find the speaker to be extremely conscientious,” Adams said when asked about the McLaughlin & Associates survey, which found that 68% of likely voters in Heastie’s district — which covers the neighborhoods of Williamsbridge, Eastchester and Wakefield — support Gov. Kathy Hochul’s budget proposal to remove the cap on charters in the city and expand them statewide.
“I think he has served his constituency well,” Adams went on. “He has been serving for several years. He served when I was there. I had a great meeting when I was in Albany with him and I think he’s a great lawmaker.”
However, Hizzoner grew noticeably silent when a Post reporter followed up: “Why would he go against the will of his voters in this case? That was the question.”
After an awkward pause, a rep for Adams called on another reporter, saying: “Sorry, we have to move on.”
The poll also found that most respondents said that crime was the issue they were most concerned about, with 57% favoring Hochul’s proposal to allow judges to use greater discretion when it comes to setting bail for dangerous suspects.
Heastie or his caucus’ campaign committee have received nearly $1.5 million in donations from powerful teachers’ unions, which oppose the publicly-funded, privately-run schools that have proliferated in the five boroughs and been credited for increased test scores among minority students while operating at a fraction of the cost of public schools.
The speaker has also repeatedly claimed that crime is also up in states with no bail reform while stating his opposition to changing the controversial 2019 measure, which eliminated cash bail in all but the most serious criminal cases as a way to prevent impoverished defendants from languishing on Riker’s Island ahead of their trials.
Neither Heastie, Hochul or state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) responded to requests for comment regarding the poll of Assembly District 83.
Even though most of those surveyed were dyed-in-the-wool Democrats, 30% of respondents had never even heard of Heastie, who has represented the district for 22 years.
A member of the Assembly’s minority GOP caucus hypothesized that Heastie was looking to avoid blowback from the left wing of his party — which generally supports the 2019 bail law and denies claims that it has led to an increase in crime, while also believing charter schools leave their public counterparts full of the city’s neediest students.
“He needs to keep his ear to the ground and serve his constituents and, you know, leadership has to lead,” freshman Assemblyman Sam Pirozzolo (R-Staten Island) told The Post. “And it seems that a lot of Democrats in the majority are concerned with being pushed out by DSAs – democratic socialists.
“And if that’s the fear you wake up to every day, you will eventually lose,” Priozzolo added. “But if you lead and do the right thing to your constituents, they will support you.”
